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Saturday, December 26, 2015

The Highlights of 2015

So the year is
almost over, and what a year it has been. I remember spending most of
my time in 2014 catching up with old games and TV shows that I missed
growing up. There are very distinct memories of consistently looking
at the new releases in a given month and going “Meh.”

Not this time. If
anything, 2015 highlights just how bad 2014 was by being its total
opposite. 2014 was marked by disappointment in the current
generation, with gamers wondering why they spent $400 (or your
nation's equivalent) on a shiny new console. On the other hand, 2015
had a consistent stream of good games.

Listed below are my
highlights of this year. Please note that this only contains games
that I have personally played. Just because your favorite game didn't
make this list does not mean that it's bad. All it means is that, for
whatever reason, I never got around to it, or I didn't play it enough
to have strong opinions of it. More importantly, I am presenting
these in no particular order to avoid those annoying discussions over
why one game is higher up on the list than another. (Seriously, I'm
using a random number generator to determine the order.)

Having said all
that: My highlights for 2015 are:

Assassin's Creed:
Syndicate

The Assassin's Creed
franchise has gotten a bad reputation lately, and not an entirely
undeserved one. Though I also appreciated Assassin's Creed: Unity
last year, I can totally understand why it wasn't well liked.
Syndicate takes some of the good ideas from Unity, namely the black
box assassination missions, and combines them with some new ideas to
inject renewed life into the series. The new grappling hook feature
offers players much more freedom in how they explore the city of
London. Switching to Arkham-style combat has accelerated the
otherwise sluggish pace of fighting in previous games. Lastly, having
two protagonists was also a massive boon, allowing Ubisoft to cater
to the different playstyles of their player base. This may be another
Assassin's Creed game, but damn is it a good one.

Helldivers

I didn't expect to
get into multiplayer games this year, but I did, and Helldivers was
part of why. Together with up to 3 frienemies, players aid their
compatriots in global campaigns by dropping down to hostile alien
worlds, completing objectives, and doing their best to not die in the
process. No other game is as frantic and tense as this one can be.
Part of that is friendly fire and swarms of mooks. The other part is
the ability to drop vehicles, weapons, and allies onto friend and foe
alike. In my experience, that alone has been fodder for a ton of
“unfortunate accidents” between friends. Luckily, each campaign
is short enough that no one loss feels like a big deal. Regardless of
how good or bad one is at it (and I am bad), getting a few friends
together for a session is guaranteed to be a good time.

Pillars of Eternity

When Pillars of
Eternity's Kickstarter campaign was first announced, Obsidian wasn't
doing too well. There were always huge problems with their games,
despite the clear love and care they had for them. At the time, I
said that if they screwed up this game, when no publisher was
involved, it would spell the death of them. Fortunately for me and
everyone else who appreciates their writing, Pillars of Eternity did
exactly what it set out to do: Revive the 2D, Isometric RPG. As
someone who hates Baldur's Gate and it's Real Time w/ Pause nonsense,
I was surprised that I enjoyed my time with Pillars of Eternity. Even
if the combat doesn't do it for some, Obsidian’s signature writing
and characters probably will.

Until Dawn

I've always had a
weird fascination with the games that David Cage produces. They're
never well written, and the plots are always unintentionally
hilarious, but I find myself drawn to that style of game. Until Dawn
represents what those AAA “story” games can do with a modicum of
self-control and self-awareness. The writers know that they are
telling a classic horror, using a lot of the same tropes one would
expect. Yet, it is smart enough to play around with expectations and
give players a pretty good thrill ride. Depending on what one does
over the course of the game, the entire cast can live, everyone can
die, or anything in between. It also came out around Halloween, which
was the perfect time for a something like this. Sony didn't expect it
to sell that well, but I'm glad it did.

Metal Gear Solid V:
The Phantom Pain

It is only in 2015
that I have finally given Metal Gear Solid the chance it deserved.
Knowing that MGS V was coming out, I played the others in
anticipation via the Legacy Collection. As a result, I find myself at
an interesting crossroads. The story is the least interesting in the
series, and doesn't do a whole lot. However, the raw mechanics,
especially in the open sandbox, work beautifully. Each system
interlocks with the others wonderfully. Knocking out and extracting
soldiers/resources improves one's base. Improving the base gives one
access to new weapons and equipment to develop. Developing new
equipment gives the player more options and mechanics to work with in
the open world. This feedback loop, combined with the game's desire
to just let players manipulate the systems at work as much as they
want to, made it one of the best stealth games I've ever played.

Devil May Cry 4:
Special Edition

I know this is
technically a re-release of an old game from the last console
generation. I'm including it on this list for two reasons. One, I
missed the original release, so this was new to me at the time.
Second, the Special Edition includes two new takes on the campaign:
One starring Vergil from DMC3, and the other with Lady and Trish from
DMC3 and DMC1 respectively. With their unique movesets, this makes
going through those levels feel fresh and new, even if one played the
old version. For only $25, this was a must-buy for fans of
character-action games.

Armello

As a said in an article earlier this year, I often miss the feeling of getting
together with friends over a tabletop and playing a game in-person.
Most of my friends either live too far away, or are too busy, to make
this practical. For me, Armello became a great way to approximate the
feeling of a tabletop game without necessitating in-person
interaction. I've played many games of Armello, and each one plays
out differently. Recently, the developers even allowed players to
customize the game with new “House Rules” options. If you're in
my situation, and you want to play tabletops with distant friends,
Armello might be the choice for you.

Rocket League

Without exception,
every person I know who has played Rocket League, myself included,
quickly fell in love with it. It's beauty is in how deceptively
simple the basic mechanics are. There are cars and a goal for each
team, a ball, and physics. Use these elements to put the ball into
the other goal. Anyone can pick up a controller, fire up this game,
and immediately understand what's going on without being taught. The
complexity comes from manipulating these physics systems to the
player's advantage. Proper positioning, angling, and trajectory come
into play. Figuring out how to line things up just right is as fun as
pulling it off. The AI is stupid, but if you need a game that you and
your friends can enjoy together, Rocket League is for you.

Fallout 4

Fun fact: Out of
every 100 people who read this post, 0 of them are surprised to see
Fallout 4 on my highlight reel. If long-time Fallout fans look passed
the expectations they had for the franchise, they will see that
Fallout 4 is one of the best scavenging/exploration games out there.
I spent more time than I care to mention just aimlessly wandering the
Commonwealth, exploring areas that caught my interest. There's also
something highly addicting about collecting components/mods and using
them to create the most blatantly, disgustingly overpowered weapons
and armor possible. It may be a flawed gem, as most Bethesda games
are, but Fallout 4 is a gem nonetheless.

Her Story

Her Story came out
of nowhere, but left a strong impression. The game starts a woman who
is being interviewed by police after the disappearance of her
husband. Players are given a database filled with excerpts from these
interviews, which they must search in order to discover the truth of
what happened. Queries are based on what words the woman uses in a
given excerpt, but will only show the top 5 results. (So searching
for “murder” will show the first 5 clips where the word “murder”
is spoken.) It's an experiment with letting players discover the
story non-linearly, in whatever order they choose. I appreciate the
confidence it takes to allow players to do this, potentially missing
out on crucial details or coming up with plausible alternate
theories. Any game designers interested in that topic, or someone
looking for a something new and different, would be well served with
Her Story.

Undertale

No 2015 highlight
reel would be complete without Undertale. By now, you're in one of
two camps. Either you are a person who can't get enough Undertale,
happily devouring every meme and reference to it. Or, you are
absolutely sick of hearing people talk about Undertale. If you've
played Undertale through to the end, you know exactly why this is the
case. Without spoilers, it uses its colorful cast of characters and a
cutesy aesthetic to disarm players and prepare them for a series of
emotional gut-punches. On top of the callbacks to Earthbound, this
was a great sleeper hit. It may be a little overrated, but if you
haven't played it, it would be worth the 6-8 hour investment.

Life is Strange

After playing
Remember Me, I was a little concerned for Dontnod Entertainment. They
had an intriguing premise and a very good story to go with it, but
Remember Me was ultimately let down by forgettable gameplay. When I
heard their next game was an adventure game in the same vein as
Telltale's latest work, I was hopeful. As it turns out, something
like this was exactly what the genre needed after The Wolf Among Us
and The Walking Dead: Season 2 nearly killed it. This game excels at
character interaction and believable conflict between characters.
Without spoiling too much, it’s often really easy to understand how
too otherwise normal and decent people in Life is Strange can grow to
resent and fight with one another. The addition of a rewind mechanic
is also a huge boon, solving the adventure game trademark problem of
choices that don’t unfold as expected. Even if it predictably
fizzles out towards the end, Life is Strange is a great
interpretation of the modern adventure game, showing the Dontnod
still has a bright future ahead.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong

Shadowrun is, to me,
the best RPG series out there right now. It combines the best
elements of old school RPG party interaction with new school design
sensibilities and X-Com combat. Each new game by Harebrained Schemes
improved upon the last, and Hong Kong is no exception. If you're a
fan on isometric RPGs of any kind, you owe it to yourself to play
Shadowrun: Hong Kong.

Human Resource
Machine

Human Resource
Machine is a strange one to talk about in my highlight reel. I can't
really say I recommend it, as it's not for everyone, but it really
spoke to me personally. As someone who works with computers and
programs every day, Human Resource Machine is a nice way to apply my
programmer's brain in a carefree way. Every level in the game is a
classic programming challenge, except with a limited the pool of
commands. If you think you might be interested in programming, Human
Resource Machine is a good way to gauge how much you'd actually like
it. It requires some outside research and abstract thinking, but
that’s exactly why I love it.

Bloodborne

This is an
interesting one to bring up, because 2015 was the year that I played
all of the Souls games, from Demon's Souls to Dark Souls 2. It is
only fitting that I also get to this game in the same year. Compared
to its brethren, Bloodborne is both much faster-paced and more
compact. And honestly, I think it's better for it. After Dark Souls
1, this is my favorite Souls-borne game. I love the addition of the
Rally mechanic to regain health by beating the crap out of enemies.
It's only smart that From Software used a lack of shields and the
addition of guns to promote far more aggressive playstyles than Souls
games. With the recent inclusion of The Old Hunters DLC, there has
never been a better time to purchase Bloodborne than now.

Again, this is the
highlight reel of really great games that I played this year. If your
favorite game of 2015 didn't make the list, it doesn't mean I hate
it. More often than not, all it means is that I either never got
around to it or didn't play enough of it to get a strong enough
impression.

That said, despite
all the good games that were released this year, there was enough
gruel to go with the gourmet. In the next post, I'll talk about some
of the games that really disappointed me in 2015.